"As news I now read that the teaser for the trailer for the remake of Total Recall has arrived. That sentence can be used as a full description of Hollywood films and marketing at the moment." That line is from an article about the blandness of Hollywood film trailers, but I thought it was kind of a bleakly funny way of describing just how awful the American movie industry has become.

27 March 2012

What can I make for dinner that involves ricotta cheese and no oven? The oven is dead but the stove top is fine. The ricotta will expire in a week. Any & all - well, within reason and a mediocre American supermarket's reach - other ingredients are obtainable. Thank you, oh gourmet chefs of metachat!

The Secret Files of Hugo and Victoria A friend of mine, Buck Buchanon, just wrote a hilarious satire of noir books about detectives and vampires. It's full of puns and makes fun of every book and movie written by Mickey Spillane and Ellery Queen. It even spoofs The Maltese Falcon. It's called The Secret Adventures of Victoria and Hugo and you can download it from amazon.com. Read it and laugh.

Question for California Bunnies Reading "Obsession" by Jonathan Kellerman,
who is an excellent writer, so....even though excellent writers are ALL about making stuff up, I'm wondering if he made this up:→Read more...

Movie for a Saturday night. Child Bride 1938. Expose/exploitation film. Miss Carol is a teacher, returned to her native Ozark hills determined to stop the practice of child marriage. Star Shirley Mills, lived into her 80s and died two years ago next week.→Read more...

18 March 2012

Do Hollywood directors always get permission to shoot in public spaces? Watching movies, I'll see a scene where two characters are walking down the street or something, and I wonder ... do directors ALWAYS get a permit to film in a public area? →Read more...

Damn Archery in pop culture is making me want to get back into it Like the only sort I was ever good at and with Katniss, Brave,and Hawkeye all up in my face I feel the urge to get back to the bow. →Read more...

14 March 2012

Sad day The smartest guy I knew in high school took his own life last Friday night at age 55. I just found out last night. We only saw each other occasionally as adults, but we stayed in touch online and had many discussions about science and politics.→Read more...

Sir, You Are Being Hunted is a game under development, in which you play a human being hunted in the British countryside by aristocratic, pipe-smoking, top-hat-wearing robots. This sounds very much like my kind of game, and the screenshots look really cool.

My health care provider is ridiculously bureaucratic. My health insurance company isn't very competent. Why do they get to charge so much? Whoever says the for-profit model is more efficient is crazy. →Read more...

Back in the day. What was the first rap/hip-hop track you heard? If you didn't fall in love right away, what was the cut that made you say, "Dayummm, I gotta hear some more of this stuff?" →Read more...

what's our take on Tori Amos? I made the mistake of listening to A Piano, a 15 year collection and it turns out in between the legendary songs that I've always loved she does a lot of complaining over tinkling keys..

The Buzludha in Bulgaria was a monument to Communism, an enourmous auditorium in a futuristic building sitting atop a mountain. Photographer Timothy Allen braved a snowstorm to reach the building, now a derelict, and take these amazing photos of it. It looks like something out of a Hollywood sci-fi movie.

The Baby in the Cornfield. "Why are stories of tornado 'miracle babies' so common? It happened again Friday when rescuers found a blond, blue-eyed toddler in the middle of an Indiana cornfield, 10 miles from her home."

New Work Assignment: Poltergeist . . .I got this email at work yesterday afternoon, and I am instructed by my boss to not treat the people as merely crazy, but to handle this with respect and seriousness.→Read more...

Banksy on advertising: "Any advert in a public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. Itís yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head."